A project that would speed freight and passenger rail along the Southern California coast will be the subject of an open house in North County on Thursday.

Plans call for adding a third rail track and additional platform at the Oceanside Transit Center, which serves more than 1.2 million people annually, according to the San Diego Association of Governments.

The track and 1,000-foot platform, which would be added to the south of the station between the existing tracks, would allow simultaneous boardings of Coaster, Metrolink and Amtrak trains, said a news release from SANDAG, the region’s transportation planning agency.

Today, only two trains can board passengers at the same time. Other trains must wait outside the station until one of the two tracks has cleared.

Along with making passenger rail more efficient, the $19.5 million project would allow freight trains to move through the station during passenger train boardings.

Officials said the project is currently in the final engineering phase before it goes out to bid for construction. Construction is expected to start in 2014 and finish in 2015.

Federal stimulus money will pay for $3.4 million worth of improvements, SANDAG said. The rest will come from TransNet, the region’s half-cent sales for transportation.

The Oceanside Transit Center is considered one of the busiest in the region, with bus and rail connections between San Diego, Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles counties. SANDAG’s project is part of an $800 million set of improvements planned along San Diego County’s coastal rail line between downtown San Diego and the Orange County line. The goal is to add a second track along the coastal stretch, and meet increased demand for passenger and freight rail.

Thursday’s open house is scheduled from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Oceanside Public Library Community Room.